Biketown station at SE 14th and Stark is one of 12 that have been hit.(Photo: Kiran Limaye)

(*See update below: PBOT says over 200 bikes have been hit. That’s 20 percent of the total system.)

Vandals have hit several Biketown bike share stations in the past week.

So far we’ve heard of 12 locations where vandals have damaged bikes and rendered them useless. The City of Portland is aware of some of the damage and has crews responding to fix the bikes and return the stations into operational status.

At least two of the incidents appear to be the work of the same suspect: A flyer has been posted on the stations that says the damage was inflicted by Rose City Saboteurs.

“This Biketown is now closed,” reads the sign. “Our city is not a corporate amusement park.”

Here are the station locations where readers have reported vandalism so far:

(3 p.m., April 4, 2017) The Portland Bureau of Transportation seeks the public’s help to find the people responsible for vandalism to the City’s BIKETOWN bike share system. This morning, users of the public bike sharing system found that more than 200 bicycles had been vandalized, with tires and seats slashed, and spokes cut. Graffiti obscured control screens on the bikes, as well as informational panels at stations and also screens of electronic kiosks used to check out bikes.

“All Portlanders should be saddened and outraged by this senseless act of vandalism,” said City Commissioner Dan Saltzman, who oversees PBOT. “The Transportation Bureau created BIKETOWN, with bikes owned by the public, to make bicycling easier and more convenient for everyone. Unfortunately, because of this criminal act, dozens or perhaps hundreds of Portlanders were not able to ride a bike this morning.” “Vandalizing a BIKETOWN bike is just as offensive as vandalizing a public bus or any other public property,” said Leah Treat, director of PBOT. “We will work with police and pursue all legal remedies to bring the perpetrators of this act to justice.”

Motivate, the City contractor that operates the BIKETOWN system, was cleaning up graffiti and repairing damaged bicycles within minutes of the first reports of the vandalism this morning. BIKETOWN is key to Portland’s effort to expand bicycling, fight climate change and create 20-minute neighborhoods called for in the city’s long range plans. Since launching July 19, 2016, BIKETOWN has grown to 2,745 annual members and has been enjoyed by 45,542 people, who have taken 189,320 trips totaling 375,121 miles. People can sign-up for BIKETOWN membership via the BIKETOWN app or by visiting BIKETOWNPDX.com.

Anyone who sees someone in the act of vandalism or other crime in progress should call 9-1-1 immediately.

Anyone with information about the vandalism to BIKETOWN facilities should contact Officer David Sanders, of the Portland Police Bureau, at david.sanders@portlandoregon.gov.

Biketown has also emailed an alert to all members, encouraging them to report any information about “this un-civic act.”

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304 Comments

BjornApril 4, 2017 at 1:35 pm

All the stations should have security camera’s. For those of us who are paying for this service this is no different than if someone slashed our personal bike tires. Unfortunately the PPB probably views this as a petty crime, but it should not be treated as such. It should be right on par with doing serious damage to a trimet bus or a max train.

In Britain about 20-30 years ago police and transit agencies put up security cameras everywhere, but especially at bus and train stations to deter crime. However, they failed to fund watchers of those same cameras. Pretty soon vandals, thugs, and rapists would only do their crimes where there were security cameras, knowing (usually rightly) that the cameras were either duds or not being monitored.

Given that this is Portland, can we assume “no one saw nothing” and the cameras were also not operating?

It’s strange…the ‘action’, that is. Is this out of the blue, or what? I mean, by way of rumors, the grapevine, etc, has there been much, if any at all, animosity being expressed about Portland’s bike share being underwritten in large part by a big corporate entity like Nike? Nothing apparent that led up to this, like graffiti on walls, etc.

When I first glanced at this story headline, I thought the culprits were just some screwups that didn’t realize spring break was over. Then to click of the story, and see the biketown kiosk with the wheatpasted poster, with a group announcing its name. That was a surprise. Like something posers would do, essentially criminal minded people, rather than people truly dedicated to anarchist values in the true sense of the word.

Whether people like bike share or not…whether they like corporations or not, or Nike in particular…this is a bad thing to have happened to the people’s bikeshare. Portland getting bike share, was a long process, in which there was plenty of opportunity for the public to opt to entirely fund this program. Instead of destroying bikes, the people that did this, could have given some thought to how they could contribute to the creation of a form of public transportation consistent with their own ideas. Something like the philosophy that inspired Food Not Bombs.

What’s done is done. With no one really owning up to the deed in name and face, it’s difficult though, not to anticipate the likelihood of more of this kind of action by whoever did this. The poster is just the culprits publicly boasting without holding themselves accountable. That being the case, though this was a brazen act, it was, as someone else commenting elsewhere in this discussion said: cowardly.

The project has always been controversial, hence the delays for years. Any part of town that doesn’t have bike share, and 85% of Portland doesn’t, many living there see the program as an elitist rich white tourist project, a huge waste of $6 million in various government funds and maintenance that could have been better spent on other needed bike projects. Basically you have roughly 550,000 suspects. Good luck finding your culprits.

I don’t live in the service area, YET, but I am paying my monthly fee in hopes that the service will come to me. This action doesn’t cost NIKE a dime but it does reduce the chances that funding will be available to expand the system closer to my house. Caning is too good for these folks IMHO. This action only hurts people who want to use bikeshare, and maybe Motivate the operator, but if anything it is a positive for Nike who has gotten a bunch of extra advertising out of all the stories about the vandalism.

All of which is especially ironic since the system has only cost $2 million in public funds and directly serves a lot more of the city than the $250 million streetcar system, or the 2-3 blocks of paved roadway somewhere that we could build with $2 million.

“… Any part of town that doesn’t have bike share, and 85% of Portland doesn’t, many living there see the program as an elitist rich white tourist project, a huge waste of $6 million in various government funds and maintenance that could have been better spent on other needed bike projects. …” hampsten

I guess I see the elitist angle on bike share. Is the 6 million/gov funds/and maintenance, in addition to the 10 mil than nike kicked down? I’ve forgotten the figures. From the time the idea for bike share for Portland was first raised, I had plenty of questions about whether it would able to provide a functional travel service worth the investment. I don’t particularly like that the bikes and stands add to the clutter on the sidewalks…but cities including Portland, do have big challenges meeting everyone’s travel needs.

Over time, reading more about bike share, and following some of the discussion surrounding it, and seeing a small bit of bike share working around the Nike campus, I came to feel that the system is worth giving it a try to see if it can help meet people’s travel needs…especially with the sweet deal the city landed in having nike underwrite a big chunk of initial expense.

Public bike share is not easy to do. In past, people in Portland have tried to put lower overhead, non-corporate supported systems in place…and every time, failed miserably. There’s plenty of aspects of corporate action and influence on U.S, society to find fault with, without attacking public bike share that has successfully managed to benefit from positive support of a major, world renowned, extremely popular corporate sponsor like Nike. In this incident, the sentiment expressed against nike may be valid, but using public bike share sponsored by nike, in such an extensive way as this action was carried out, affecting so many bikes and stations, doesn’t to me seem at all a reasonable or justifiable means of expressing concern about corporations, or this one corporation in particular.

@Wsbob No city funds were spent on BIKEtown. The city did obtain a grant which along with sponsorship and user funds has paid for the system. The only direct contribution to the system by the city is giving up the space for the racks. So the city has leveraged a small amount of rack space into 185000 transit trips in under 9 months during which we saw the worst winter weather in recent memory. That is what I call a great deal.

So, Portland doesn’t benefit from rich white elitist tourists, and more people riding bikes? OK, send them all to my town, pretty please! I’ve got a business to run it makes gravy from tourists. Can’t get enough of those guys, actually.

I wrote a reply to your question, thought I posted it. Cant remember for sure, maybe not, because I see no trace of it now. Looking over the range of comments here, I see no reason why what I wrote, would have been deleted. …maus, honestly, I don’t know if I posted the comment or not, but if you have an objection to something I wrote, all you need to do is attach a note and keep it in moderation. I’ll change it and possibly repost.

Other people commenting here, have mentioned anarchists possibly being the culprits. The poster, the artwork, is a handmade kind of thing not unfamiliar around Portland. What’s anarchism, really? Is it a philosophy that justifies destruction of the public’s property? Because public, is what Portland’s bike share, given the name BikeTown, in exchange for a major contribution in support of it…is.

Some people commenting here, have referred to anarchists that cover their faces, as cowards. But did anarchists commit this act? The poster says: ‘Rose City Saboteurs’ and ‘RCS’. Fancy name. I’d never heard of the name. New group maybe. I’ve heard of another group someone mentioned in a comment here: Rose City Antifa…but nobody’s coming straight out and accusing them of having done this to bike share. Both groups seem to like using Rose City as part of their names though.

In my earlier comment, I mentioned that it occurred to me the people that did this were posers. Meaning, not really anarchists in the true sense of the word…but people that may have sought to present themselves as anarchists…to make anarchists look bad.

What’s really bad, or seem so to me, is that if this is a real group that cares about working towards a better society, why haven’t they been trying to talk openly with the public? Before resorting to destructive acts like this one? Just come out and say what’s on your mind. It’s the civil thing to do, and we can do that in the U.S.

I don’t understand what Rose City Antifa has to do with this. Rose City Rollers also likes using Rose City in their name. Perhaps they did this out of a sense of competition with other human-powered wheeled transportation? Or perhaps the Rose City Rowers harbors a grudge?

It will make for an interesting case if the DA successfully uses a transit code for this public private service. I know that planners are defining it as the next transit mode. (City commissioners may want to formally adopt it as such now vs later.)

Wasn’t there something in the federal Military Commissions Act, aka PATRIOT 2, that made messing with transportation a serious crime?

I’m sure they intended to mean cars, trucks, trains, planes and buses, but I don’t recall anything that excluded a bikeshare. Then again, I never read the thing (like the folks in Congress who passed it who also didn’t read it), but there were some news stories.

You can’t honestly be surprised that the radical left would stab you in the back like this, are you? BP might hit up the same political talking points as them, but you pretty clearly haven’t appeased them. Nor will you ever. So maybe just stick to bike news from now on?

Who might gain from this? Is it the chop shop folks who see bike share as a threat to their industry? Underemployed bike shop mechanics who are seeing steadily declining wages caused by falling bike sales? Disenchanted bike shop owners who didn’t get the bike share service contract? Established hotel owners/managers and Portland taxi drivers who see a bike share/Uber taxi/Air BnB conspiracy? Lots of Red Herrings, as Lord Peter Wimsey would say.

I don’t think actions like this are ‘right’ or ‘left’. The perps are ‘nihilists’, haters of their culture, the values and actions of the society that they live in. They are the same types of people who show up at City Council meetings and scream and rant at City officials, or vandalize totally innocent locally-owned businesses, under cover of political protest. They have no constructive place in our society. They need to be confronted at every turn; get in their faces. Arrest them; don’t write them tickets. Arrest them, charge and try them, and put them in jail. We, as a society, tip-toe around miscreants like this, and nothing changes. Well, actually, it gets worse.

I was going to visit PDX next week and use Biketown to get around, but now I’ll just rent a car from General Motors and fill it up with Chevron gasoline and drive around all day raging against the machine. Love you Anarchists, but sometimes you can be so short-sighted.

Hi Walt, I’m guessing that was a good dab of sarcasm in that comment, but if you are visiting and don’t want to use Biketown, please consider using a local bike shop rental service prior to renting a car. You can find a comprehensive list here: https://www.portlandoregon.gov/transportation/article/71974 of of which the vast majority (if not all) have supported bikeshare and improving access to biking while knowing it would affect their business.

Pretty lame. Those last three stations in SE are the ones I use the most.

I hate the gambit of getting into prioritization by protesters, but going after a pretty selfless outlay of money (yeah, I get it there is marketing benefit from this quite visible bikes) that supports a new form of transit, not to mention one of the most affordable forms of transit, is kind of weak.

Hate the globalization of business? Right on. Sweatshops? Of course. Bikes that our city wouldn’t pay for themselves? Ehhhh.

Not to say I’m not at least a bit conflicted when I hop on Biketown, but I got over it pretty easily.

I think this vandalism is petty, childish and unproductive. While I agree that I wish our city was not a corporate amusement park, sadly, that ship sailed a long time ago. If you don’t like it, time to hit the road…I’m looking into it myself. Do the people who committed the vandalism even remember a time when Portland wasn’t a corporate amusement park?

Serious question, what does calling the city a corporate amusement park mean? I have no idea — and I consider myself to be a radical leftist. Biketown seems great, and while there’s always room for improvement, Portland is great as well. And amusement, well that’s the point of life as far as I can see.

If you remember what Portland was like at any point before 2005 or so, you should know what it means to call it “Disneyfied” now. We used to have the coin-op Church of Elvis and Locals Only…now we have Fogo de Chao and $1m penthouse apartments in the Pearl.

Oddest thing to see out in Beaverton, is people looking kind of lost, occasionally walking around downtown beav town sq, with those big pink boxes held up against their chests, or raised above their heads. It’s just donuts, isn’t it? Are the fat and sugar snack that good and so rare in the beav, that people have to bring them all the way out from Portland?

Maybe voodoo should consider getting in on bike share sponsorship in exchange for even more brand visibility than its current high trend recognition already gives it…bright pink bike share bikes! …with the cute but a little scary top-hatted ghoul icon on them instead of a swoosh…people wouldn’t be able to resist riding those calorie burning bikes, anymore than they seem to be able to resist the temptation to indulge in the calorie bulking donuts. A win-win for bike share, the donut shop, for everyone.

Even if voodoo is a corporation, no way is it as big as nike. The trendy donut shop sponsoring bike share, isn’t going to turn Portland into a corporate amusement park, so instead of the donut ghoul bedecked bikes having them feel they faced an imminent threat from one, the saboteurs could instead, stand down, kick back, and just have a donut.

If all the Anit-Fa fun we have been enduring the past 6 months is political free speech, then this is not vandalism. Rather, it is also political free speech. It should be reflected as such in the article.

I’m guessing the nail dumpers probably had a general issue with cyclists, so probably not.

They weren’t very smart either. Apparently they weren’t aware that broken glass is easier to get in bulk for free, much more effective, and harder to remove. Still, that plan strikes me more intelligent than sabotaging bike share facilities.

Sheesh. The revolutionary types out here are as incompetent as they get.

I am as much against the banksters and corporate oligarchs as the next day but these jerks need to get a clue and some guts and do something productive in the fight against neoliberalism and the corporate destruction of the environment and the working class. Close the valves on an oil pipeline, lock yourself to the desk of Exxons CEO or join ElF ( they still around?) and trash some SUV’s. But don’t vanadalize one of the few sane alternatives to destroying the earth with pollution just because you don’t like the name on the bikes. Emma Goldman, Dave Foreman and Paul Watson would be ashamed of you.

It’s one of those things for radicals… they’d rather get in the face of people that might say they’re “as much against the banksters, etc.” and force them to make a choice, rather than attack people that aren’t “against the banksters” at all. Take out a Range Rover, well, its owner probably isn’t anti-corporate at all, and its owner is really just one person, a cog. Take out bike-share, it’

(Of course, as we see, the tactic has failed, as self-righteous liberals are calling out radicals — for their violations of liberal ideals but by invoking radical ideals. The more self-aware among us might recognize and own that our values are liberal, not radical. There’s a CD on the shelf in my living room whose refrain goes, “Baby, I’m an anarchist, you’re a spineless liberal,” which is a fun sing-along, but it’s a song sung to people like me, not by us.)

I don’t think this could possibly top the bird sanctuary. That was an amazing collision of high stakes posturing in a low stakes scenario. This is low stakes meets low stakes. Like you said earlier, can’t wait for the next toilet plugging.

Rather than dwell on my anger, I’d like to talk about how much I love Biketown. I have grumped about some details but I’ve always come back. Their bikes are better than my own, usually. I’ve incorporated them into how I get around. Biking without having to be responsible for a bike is pretty great. Plus there is something glorious about riding around on a loud, day-glo orange bike. Motorists give me way more space than they do on my main bike. It’s just fun.

Way to stick it to the man! By the man, I mean my immigrant husband who doesn’t have a driver’s license (so can’t pop into car), doesn’t own a bike of his own, and so is dependent on BikeTown to get to school. Finally, some brave Portlanders are daring to stand up to folks like him.

Most immigrants who live in Portland live well beyond the bike share service area, such as in East Portland, Cully, North Portland, etc. FYI, Immigrants driving without a license is so common that the Portland Police Bureau actually has a program to train such drivers – no ID is necessary.

We agree with Ovid’s response to you. Ovid told of their actual, personal situation, and you responded with the equivalent of “mansplaining” (immisplaing?) about “most immigrants.” Ovid’s sarcastic reply was poignant.

The reason that services like this need corporate support is that the users are not willing to pay the full price for the service. The service has a very reasonable price but that is because Nike, the federal government through a grant, and Kaiser Permanente subsidize the service just like taxpayers subsidize roads, National Parks, and mass transit. Portland seems to have a high tolerance for anarchy and vandalism as evidenced by the many violent protests that people mistake for free speech. I wonder if our weak response to all the anarchy in the past has led to more of this type of activity.

They also tint their windows. Heavy sigh. Really getting tired of “just rolling” with all this acting out. And I do think this “action” was more about acting out than any cause. Any excuse to tear things up, make noise, thump that ape chest.

Well, they do have a point. Why is bike share the only mode of public transport that is not allowed to use public funding and thus requires direct funding from private corporations in exchange for advertising space? Perhaps PBOT should reconsider their “no public funding for bike share” policy.

To understand that point, you have to appreciate the perspective behind it — a difficult task for people who are not dоuсhebags. Basically, the idea is you improve things by wrecking them. For example:

1) Destroy library materials and public computers to increase information accessibility for underserved people

2) Poison trees and plant life in the parks to make them more accessible to all

3) Vandalize clinics providing services to poor people to improve their health care

It’s important that the “leaders” for these activities be white males who are so insecure they can’t even show their face in public, let alone have people know who they are or how to join in their glorious cause.

They did have highways thousands of years ago. They just didn’t have cars.

People didn’t face threats from cars on those roads, but it would be a mistake to think of them as safe as bandits, wild animals, and outright dangerous conditions claimed many lives. Plus, you could still get run over by carriages.

Even within our own state (and ignoring the transport challenges of the people who lived here first), the odds of surviving a trip across the country are much better now than when people heavily relied on the Oregon Trail.

I’m surprised Adam would cite any of these roads with approval as none of them had separated cycling infrastructure.

The city has refused to spend any money for bike share operations. Imagine if TriMet refused to provide funding to run buses. Somehow PBOT is more than happy to find the money for Streetcar operations, though. Why is the line drawn at bicycles? Is it because public bicycles are still seen as toys and tourist traps, and not as a legitimate mode of public transport?

I find it absurd and troubling that we are increasingly relying on for-profit corporations to fund public services. Especially considering our current administration is hell-bent on scrapping our entire country for parts and handing it over to the capitalistic sharks.

Apparently, the preferred group to hand control of policy to is a tiny group of adolescents who can’t even show their faces.

As much as I hate Comcast (I don’t have any of their services and will never do business with them again for a variety of reasons), they still produce something of value — unlike the аss clowns who wrecked all the bikes.

Hello, Kitty Absurd? Is it absurd that your internet is provided by a private company? That your electricity is? That your trash service is? Portland uses many different models to provide essential services. Why is that absurd?

I can’t imagine what happens if he discovers that almost the entire food supply is privately produced for profit.

Maybe his buddies will try to improve the situation by destroying an organic farm…

The profit based system in food production is why millions of your fellow citizens are starving while restaurants and grocery stores throw food away every day. You openly scoff at people here but you should really do some reading.

… and yet apparently, according to the story above, PBOT is sending staff to fix, repair if you will, the stations, while the police are investigating, both agencies of which are paid through tax dollars. I’d say the city is spending quite a lot to maintain the system.

Funny you should mention police, since they are the single largest consumer of the general fund and always are asking for more money, even though crime is down. Perhaps PBOT could actually dedicate city funding to Biketown — and not rely on corporate funds — if the city would direct funds from the PPB.

Yeah, they should ask for less money since they have so little to do these days now that some crime stats are on the decline. Compared to cities I have lived in the midwest, I barely notice a police presence at all in this city. Here, for example, people have no fear of hauling ass down Burnside. I can’t even remember the last time I saw a motorist pulled over in town.

” I can’t even remember the last time I saw a motorist pulled over in town.”

Are you serious? I see it all the time. There are also many inconsiderate cyclists downtown as well and I have never seen a cyclist get a ticket, ever. I think riding bicycles and public transportation is infinitely better than everyone driving their cars, but the holier than thou and dishonest approach is also annoying.

the article says no such thing. PBOT is obviously concerned about the damage to the BIKEtown transit system but the article is clear that Motivate the contractor who manages the system is the one fixing the damage not PBOT:

“Motivate, the City contractor that operates the BIKETOWN system, was cleaning up graffiti and repairing damaged bicycles within minutes of the first reports of the vandalism this morning.”

I also don’t think anyone thinks that the Portland Police should stop responding to car theft because it is a subsidy to drivers, when people commit crimes costing the city thousands of dollars the police should respond.

Since bike theft (lights, seats, bells, et al) are so rampant in our fair city, I’ve become a a full time Biketown commuter and weekend tripper. 10 trips during a week for commute plus evening and weekend trips. At long last I can enjoy a movie without thinking of my bike being stolen, no longer must I smell the stinky dumpster as I wait for the service elevator at my building. Nice work Jerks, you’ve saved us all from sharing. Your mothers must be so proud. Now on to the business of getting rid of all this ‘please & thank you’ nonsense. It’s really creating a lot of hot air at all the Portland daycares.

I attended those meetings as punishment for 6 years (2009-2015) – it made me who I am today, fat, ugly, unemployed, budget-literate and a professional troublemaker. They then forcibly deported me to Greensboro North Carolina. Woe is me!

as someone with political affinity for anarcho-syndicalism i strongly object to your ignorant statement. your political bigotry is no different from the political hate spewed by some alt-right trump supporters.

PS: the O that surround the anarchist A stands for *order”. yes…many card-carrying anarchists believe in *order* and political *organization*.

Seems like that if the Police, have any stills from a security camera at one of the vandalized sites during the act, they could make them public and post them in places like Bike Portland so the interested public could help identify the perps.

I have not seen or heard of anything quite this disturbing. I hope they find them and put them in jail. For a long time. Of course every so often I do see someone riding a Citibike a L-O-N-G ways from a docking station or early on there were a few people who stole them and rode them around – one I have a photo of painted to completely black!! LOL! Not gonna get caught?

To the folks that did this, please consider that Nike employs thousands of Oregonians. Most of us know someone who works there. Heck, one of your neighbors may have even advocated to bring BikeTown to Portland, worked on the implementation, or is currently dealing with the aftermath of this vandalism. This action brings nothing positive. It only harms our neighbors and gives the far right (and even moderates in this case) more ammunition for their anti-left rhetoric.

Nike sponsored the initial launch of the system, claiming branding rights. Motivate operates the system, recruiting its team through local organizations like Oregon Tradeswomen, A Social Ignition, MercyCorps Northwest, and SE Works. PBOT owns the assets. Nike does not make revenue off of the system.

To that point–this vandalism isn’t a stab at NIKE or the man. It’s literally preventing Portlanders from getting to school, to doctor’s appointments, to work, and it’s a chunk out of the operating budget that might be better allocated for training opportunities for hourly staff.

If I’m willing to concede they have a point, then why not only paint over the advertisements? What does disabling the bikes/stations have to do with their anti-corporate message? If Biketown users today arrived to find de-Nike’d bikes they could still use, perhaps someone might sympathize with the actual message. Idiots.

Gary, good thought – reminds me of the unknown culture jammers that, circa early 90’s, labeled over the Front Ave. (now Naito Pkwy.) street signs with “Malcolm X Blvd” stickers in the middle of the night. Very well executed. Yes, vandalism, but laser- focused, and in the context of the raging debate at the time over renaming Union Ave. (now MLK Jr. Blvd.) , truly inspired, beautiful and memorable.

Protesters have been an institution in Portland for longer than I can remember. George Herbert Walker Bush called Portland little Lebanon (from when that mideast country was a center of protest). They are punks who wreck stuff in their slumming white boy way of “keeping it real”.

I’m wondering who the Rose City Saboteurs are, and why they chose this moment to trash these Biketown stations in an attempt to shut the service down. And why are they considered evidence that Portland has become a “corporate amusement park”? I’m gonna guess that it’s directed at Nike, not the city. Be glad you’re not trying to commute thru NYC today. The newest derailment at Penn Station, the second in two weeks, has put 9 of 21 tracks out of service indefinitely, scambling schedules for subway, LIRR, Amtrak, and NJ Transit and creating chaos – and probably much longer commutes – for thousands across three states and turning East Coast Amtrak service into an unholy mess.

Now living in a metro area that’s home to 16+ Fortune 500 companies, where there’s a ton of corporate money sloshing around funding all sorts of projects and charities, I find it hilarious that someone would think of corporate-money-scarce Portland — where the bikeshare system was delayed forever because they couldn’t find a sponsor — as a “corporate amusement park”. You have got to be kidding me.

I can see all the corporations in PDX trembling at this news and readying their exit as soon as possible. You certainly showed them you mighty, mighty wiser than thou folk. Thank you!!! Now, check all the labels on each and every article of clothing you own, and each and every item you own, and if you see a corporate logo…, well, then you’re a hypocrite. Oops.

Supposedly an anti fascist organization. Curiously, they run a store where they sell fairly pricey logo gear. Couldn’t help but notice that “their” scarves and t-shirts were so graphically similar to Timber Army and Red Stripe merchandise that I wouldn’t be notice the difference from a distance.

Crazy. It sounds tin-foil hat, but it’s a real thing. I suppose the Secret Service pushed for this to track counterfeiters (ironic since most laser printers and scanners are programmed to recognize money and not print or scan it properly).

I wonder if the Portland police are taking a look at Instagram to see who is celebrating this vandalism on photos tagged with #rosecitysaboteurs. These people are proud of what they did. They’ll have a hard time keeping quiet about it.

I only saw a few photos posted with only a handful of comments. However, the “likes” for each provides a convenient list of idiоts — in many cases, it’s easy enough to figure out real identities even when they’re hiding behind pseudonyms using other bits of info on the internet and following relationships.

Doing this manually would be painstaking, but a mediocre programmer and data wonk could develop tools that compile data to identify people to focus on. The data analysis requires a bit more sophistication than the programming, but all this stuff is easily within the range of a competent professional.

I assume such tools exists and if any LEO are reading this and you *don’t* have this, you should build it.

Those tools certainly do exist, and I am sure more than a few LEOs have them. Nonetheless, as helpful as they’d be in a situation like this, the potential for abuse is very high. I would want a warrant required before this sort of analysis could be conducted, though if things really get out of hand, that requirement won’t provide much protection.

Heh, heh — I think we may have a couple numbskulls in our midst — big surprise there.

I commented on one of the photos celebrating the vandalism, the owner of the photo replied that he simply took a picture, but the account was suddenly deleted in the last hour.

No one except a tiny percentage of bike dоrks even know, let alone care, about something that appears to have been intended as some major action. And it had practically no impact beyond collateral damage. What a sorry bunch.

Had anyone connected this to the post on the Bike Loud Facebook page from Apr 1? Not that I think “Mona” was responsible, but the timing was interesting.

Group Member Tim Davis wrote on 1 Apr 2017: :

“Hi everyone! I had an interesting conversation this afternoon with an artist named Mona. She has lived in Portland for over 30 years, and she desperately wants the “old Portland” back (sounds familiar, eh?). One of the first things she said really shocked me, and that’s why I’m sharing it here. She said this (with some possible paraphrasing, but it was basically this): ‘I wish someone would vandalize those stupid orange bikes. Only tourists use them, and they’re ruining my once-peaceful runs in Waterfront Park, and all these newcomers are driving up the cost of everything in Portland.'”

This is exactly the sort of fear-mongering that got Trump elected. When are we going to realize that our fellow humans are not our enemies, but that they are in fact fellow humans? It’s so easy to get caught up in vitriol and hate in the days of anonymous information, where faces disappear from messages. If instead we would actually take the time to listen to people and consider their concerns and feelings, if we take the time to realize that their lived experiences are as real for them as ours is for ourselves, then just maybe we can open a real dialogue to find compromises and solutions that actually work.

It’s time to stop blaming and shaming and to start being responsible. War-like attitudes can come from any point along the political spectrum; ending them and the destruction they bring means being mindful of our own attitudes and to stop spreading hate instead of love. It begins with YOU.

I lived in Seattle through the 80’s, before it was “spoiled.” Damn; that was heaven! I lived Portland in the early 90’s before it was “spoiled.” Heaven! Those of you who want to duplicate that kind of experience better move your asses to Cleveland (about 6 months left) or Pittsburgh (maybe a year and a half?) Then, I dunno… parts of Detroit? Madison?

Anyway, when you get there, please don’t f@cK up whatever public bike share system that happens to spring up regardless of how they are sponsored or branded. I’m pretty sure bike share is not the enemy we need to rally against. :/

And I left SF and came to Portland 25 years ago because it was too expensive. I didn’t think it was my divine right to live there, so I found a city where I could do work I wanted to do and that I could afford.

Nike is a for profit company with annual revenue of $33 billion. That is about what the ENTIRE STATE of Oregon spends running things.

Nike made the cold, calculated, decision that sponsoring bikeshare Portland was a net-win for the company’s bottom line. This is NOT altruism. This is just corporate branding masquerading as public service.

The City of Portland are sell-outs for letting Nike brand this system while they did nothing more than throw a few mil for the privilege for hundreds of permanent hi-vis mini billboards in Portland’s trendiest neighborhoods. Not to mention the bikes themselves which are rolling ads for Nike and it’s beneficence.

Sickening.

Meanwhile whole populations of people are being priced out of LIVING in the city by precisely the same forces which consume or aspire to consume all matter of althetilesuire apparel and cutesy Portland BS, which unfortunately have come to include bikes. Corporate relocates from the bay area (“it’s so cheap here!”).

So yeah, I can –KINDA– see why some folks might be a little annoyed at the whole arrangement.

I am a huge bike booster, but there must be limits and there are other ways of making sure bike use spreads.

Ah, orange. This one’s tricky, and I’m glad you brought it up. Some people will tell you that all orange is bad while others will tell you that all orange is good. There are even those who say that actually all good things are bad and all bad things are good. As with most things I believe the truth is more subtle and is found closer to the middle: all things that were orange before I moved here are good while all things that became orange after I moved here are bad.

… but seriously, you are right, I left Portland for North Carolina not because I was unemployed and unemployable, or because my rent in East Portland doubled in 3 years, but because of Orange and all its ramifications.

Nike is a native Oregonian company that was born before before I was, and I’m 50 years old. Nike has had a prominent presence in the Portland area long before most of the “Portlanders” who read this blog, including its author. They’ve been a for-profit multinational firm for a long, long time. Portland has changed around Nike, not the other way around.

I’m not really a super big fan of ads either, they are obnoxious, but, well, seems a bit nuts to want to destroy things because there’s ads involved. You know, I see ads right here on this website (and it seems you still like the site well enough to be a supporter)…

Who said it was an either-or proposition? If Nike had been properly assessed and paid taxes all these years, we would have a heck of a lot more to show than a bikeshare system. Just imagine what we might have done.

Nike is not a permanent sponsor. Their 10 million dollar sponsorship has a fixed term of 5 years. At that point Nike will have to contribute more funds to maintain their sponsorship or hopefully someone else will step up if they don’t.

[quote]”The City of Portland are sell-outs for letting Nike brand this system while they did nothing more than throw a few mil for the privilege”[/quote]

i assume that you are even more upset about the many millions in corp kickbacks trimet receives for the far, far more obtrusive ads on its vehicles, in its vehicles, and on/around its street facilities.

The travesty is not that Nike paid to sponsor this (and gain branding rights) but that the city refused to put in but a pittance to get this running. Point your disgust at the city (and council members like Saltzman), not Nike (regardless of their motivation).

Last I heard, bicycle oriented businesses also do what they do for money. Wouldn’t want to discourage them.

Biketown raises awareness of cycling and makes bikes more available to more people. Seems like a good thing. Trashing bikes doesn’t just hurt Biketown — the idea of cycling to get around gets undermined.

“The travesty is not that Nike paid to sponsor this (and gain branding rights) but that the city refused to put in but a pittance to get this running. …” lascurettes

What about the city’s residents? They’re the bosses…city hall staff are the elected and appointed public employees. Were council members and the mayor, overwhelmed with calls, letters, emails and lapel grabbing on the street, asking the city to please dig into the local taxpayer part of city budget, or add a tax, to get bike share up and running, and keep it maintained?

“…The City of Portland are sell-outs for letting Nike brand this system while they did nothing more than throw a few mil for the privilege for hundreds of permanent hi-vis mini billboards in Portland’s trendiest neighborhoods. …” kittens

What are your suggestions as an alternative source for providing operational and maintenance costs for Portland’s bike share, currently underwritten by one of the most well known around the world, and popular corporations for the products they design and produce…not to mention the many sports they actively support? Because if you or somebody you know, has a better idea for bike share that works as well or better than this one is doing, and is less irritating to people suffering from corporate and advertising over-exposure…the city might be interested.

Nike kicks down 10 mil, not just several, and for only 5 years, as bjorn reminds us, pending a performance revue at the end of the 5 years, I expect. The public wasn’t sure about bike share, and people don’t want a bigger city budget and more taxes…bike share got off to slow start as a result. The city next, actively went after other sources of support. Going by what I read in the news, there weren’t more than a few groups prepared to underwrite the costs of the experimental program (if it doesn’t perform, it may go by the wayside, like Seattle’s system has.). The city’s success in having Nike join in to support the city’s bike share, even with the corporate branding, moving billboards thing, seems to me like an excellent accomplishment.

There are corporations around the world, some of which do some really bad things. We can talk about all things that Nike has done, that aren’t so good, like the sweatshop controversy it go mired in…temporarily, if I recall correctly. Didn’t the company respond positively and try to correct that, giving the company’s contractors the word that they must pay employees a decent wage?

Incidentally, I happened to notice in tweet postings, mention that the Washington Post did a story on this incident. I enjoyed reading it, here’s a link:

Well, for starters, we could tax them and let a public, transparent apparatus comprised of elected representatives hired expressly for that purpose do what they are designed to do: reallocate the proceeds.

Allowing huge multi-nationals to pick and choose who and what they deem worthy of a few crumbs is an abomination of democracy and a usurpation of the public will.

Again, let me reiterate: Nike made a calculation that the cost was worth it. Not out of the goodness of their hearts but because it makes sense financially. Indeed as a publicly traded company, it is their sole purpose to make value for shareholders.

Now that they have ingratiated themselves to an entire population of Portland elites, how readily do you think these people will be clamoring for the state and county and city to start pursuing Nike for taxes they rightfully owe? Poor Nike, just cant afford to pay taxes but can shower wonderful gifts on the people of inner-Portland.

So, because the American corporate tax structure allows municipalities to negotiate breaks by threatening to relocate and take jobs with them (like Steve Jobs did with Cupertino to force them to allow his developers to build that monstrosity), you want to indict their sponsorship of a bike share program?

I know you don’t own any Apple products, because if you did, you’d be a hypocrite. Oh, and next time you want to find something on the Internet, don’t you dare use Google or Bing.

“Well, for starters, we could tax them and let a public, transparent apparatus comprised of elected representatives hired expressly for that purpose do what they are designed to do: reallocate the proceeds. …” kittens

Already happening, I think. I don’t know the details really, but am fairly sure Portland owns bike share. There is a city board or some such thing, with members that decide together how to run they system and keep track of the budget. Nike may have a rep on that board, but I’m…99.7 percent sure (sorry, lines from that crazy show, ‘psych’, pop into my head from time to time.), Nike isn’t the sole…no joke intended…entity making the decisions.

Sorry about not digging up the specific details for you. I’m interested as I coincidentally come by them, but they’re not exactly urgent for me to know. The city contracts with bike share operator to provide the bikes and run some parts of the system.

geez…I hate to sound like I don’t appreciate and respect your point of view, because I do. I don’t particularly like the corporate concept in general, but it’s kind of a basic economic building block of modern civilization. 10 million bucks is not just a few crumbs…if it were…the public would have forked it up without hesitation. About the shoe company having the bottom line, profit, be a priority: of course Nike is looking at the profit angle. This is no big secret.

I’m not going to say that ‘everybody’ knows the profit rationale behind corporations and other businesses…even for example, small local businesses that monetarily or ‘in kind’ support things like fun runs, bike rides, or even weblogs like the one you’re reading…but I think many, many people know well enough how this works, and favor the method of support. What about McDonalds and the Ronald McDonald’s houses? We could compile a mind boggling list of corporations that give back. It’s all calculated by the bean counters for tax write-offs and whatnot, but I got to say, I think that’s better than nothing by a long shot. As long as those deals are gone into with eyes wide open, I think there’s a chance they can be ok.

Living in Beaverton, I remember the whoo-ha-ha over the city trying to get taxes out Nike. Who was the smarter of the two….the shoe company’s staff or Beaverton’s staff? Answer: the former. Beaverton would have liked the taxes, could have used them…but losing the company wouldn’t have been worth it. I can’t remember exactly what happened, but basically Beaverton officials goofed up, it wound up costing the city a bunch of money.

I’ve got plenty of misgivings about Nike, but as corporations go…I think we’re lucky to have this one out in Beaverton. Portland is lucky to have nike helping with bike share. I just hope the city’s anti-fascists, or saboteurs, will try and have a vocal dialogue with people of the city, before they decide busting up stuff is the course they must take to bring the change they feel is needed.

Biketown was thrust on my street with no neighborhood notice, and the orange bikes generally annoy me because of this. I’m still creeped out by how organized this vandalism was. A few bikes flipped upside down when the program started made me giggle a little. This sucks.

That is a freaking awesome story, and exactly what a public program should do. I hope the program continues to actually serve people without access to bikes.

When I look at Biketown, I typically just see ugly Nike branding in neighborhoods that everyone already owns bikes. My local shop that rented bikes to tourists is gone. The bikes match the demolition and lame cookie cutter condos filled with wealthy transplants. It feels like Portland sold out. Thanks for telling your story.

I would rather rent from these guys that have a system and fixing process rather than rent from the small shops. I rented in Vancouver BC from a small shop and ended up carrying the bike miles because of issues with the bike. There is something to be said about having the city behind something like this.

zed, that is a good story. A partnership by biketown and Community Cycling Center, benefiting low income or homeless people, is exactly the kind of thing I thought could happen, if someone proposed such an idea, which someone apparently did. Might any of Portlands’s anarchists, or anti-fascist people in town have proposed such and idea before this incident occurred.

…madeline…I’m sorry you feel bad about nike’s role in bike share, and how you feel the enhanced corporate visibility presence may be hastening a decline in long term quality values of neighborhoods. Believe me, out in my area, Beaverton, there’s lots development that to me, seems to be a genuine, maybe irrevocable loss of some of the best qualities of this area. Kind of have to take it in stride, and be glad to be able to pick something good out of all the bad.

So called ‘progress’, development and population increase, is like some relentless leviathan. Something has to be done to meet people’s travel needs, and opportunities to take advantage of help to that end, from the big corporation many people inevitably hate, can be good, as this partnership with between the city, the corporation, and the non-profit, as well as all the city’s residents, seems to be.

It IS ironic. I know there’s more going on than a logo war, but…one group doesn’t like seeing another’s logo on public property, even though the logo was put there legally, so they vandalize the public property and slap their own logo on it, forcing people who don’t like THEIR logo to look at it.

I’ve ridden 330 miles on BikeTown since it was launched. I’d ridden bike share systems in Fort Collins, Boulder and Chattanooga. I couldn’t tell you who the sponsors were, only that they worked and worked well. BikeTown works better. Until this vandalism occurred I rarely thought about Nike especially since I really only shop thrift. But, now I’m thinking of heading to the mall to pick up a brand new pair of Jordans.

Garish orange branding on streets with awesome vintage homes… it is a bit of a gut punch. Portland has a history of valuing art, in a quirky diy sort of way. SE was not nearly as wealthy until quite recently, when the developers opted to raze most of it to lure in out-of-state wealth, who wanted new and shiny.

The tourism will dissipate as new cities replace us on the “cool” list, but we will be stuck with the aftermath.

The “garish orange branding” is far more palatable than the latest hideous Everett Custom Home, a cheap and lazy ripoff of historic Portland architecture. And there are a whole lot more of those houses than there are bike share stations.

Ummm…the thing that is destroying the look of our vintage neighborhoods are the soulless and hideous saltine boxes that developers are throwing up, after demolishing right-sizes vintage homes. A bike share station every 10 square blocks isn’t even on the same planet as hundreds of demolitions and subsequent hideous new buildings in our historic neighborhoods.

I’d personally like to see every one of those bungalows torn down and replaced with affordable rental housing. IMO, the speculative activities of the bungalow class are ruining the “character” of my 80% renter neighborhood.

That ad shows a totally updated house with perfect interiors in a close-in, nice neighborhood, with a garage, and across the street from a school with a large lawn. It’s also still unrented and asking $1300/month over the zillow estimate, so there’s at least some chance it will rent for less. It’s 4 bedrooms and over 2,000 sf. Say it ultimately rents for $3,200/month. Divide by 4 roommates and that’s $800/month per person. And there are lots of old houses that would rent for less than that. So I don’t think it’s a great argument against bungalows/old houses not being a good source of affordable rentals.

Your “let’s magically reduce the rent…” comment doesn’t make sense. The rent paid isn’t set by how much the owner wants, it’s set by what people will pay. Your example showed someone wanting far higher rent than the zillow number. I didn’t say they CAN’T get that, just that there’s some chance they won’t, so I think it was reasonable for me to base my example on them getting something slightly lower than the asking price, but still much higher than the zillow estimate.

Your “substitute a room for an apartment” comment doesn’t make sense either. A roommate typically gets their own bedroom, plus shared use of all the other rooms. Lots of people prefer that to living alone, and especially to living alone with a much smaller kitchen, living room, yard, etc.

And your “hey renting families, stop your whinging (sic)” comment is just gratuitous. Nobody’s saying everyone should be happy living with roommates. The reality remains that there are lots of older houses that cost far less to live in (by an individual person or family, or roommates) than your example.

Most houses are not that expensive. The one that is slated for redevelopment near 11th & Harrison was renting rooms for under $500 as recently as last year. I hope that units in the new building will be equally affordable.

But I’m not sure why that tax would cause the rent to plummet, if you’re talking about a tax on home sales (which may be a wrong assumption on my part). There’s no sale involved. If there were a high home sales tax, it seems likely that owners who decided to move would turn their home into a rental instead of selling it. Or they’d just stay put.

Or if the idea is that the tax would go towards building more rental housing, then overall rents should drop. But then the question is, why should the financing of affordable housing be put on the backs of people who want to own their home?

Yes, heavily taxing house sales would mean fewer people will be buying houses to live in themselves, or to rent to others. It also would mean fewer people are selling them, because it will become more financially attractive to stay in them themselves, or to convert them to rentals. It also would mean the people not buying them to live in will now become people looking for a rental to live in, if they still want to live here. It would also mean it could cost more to buy a house to tear down to build rental units.

I’m not saying you can’t be right that rental prices would plummet, I’m saying I just don’t see why they would, since it seems that some of the impacts of the tax would work against that.

And again, even if the tax worked to cause rents to plummet, it seems unfair to target one segment of people to pay such a high cost towards that end.

I was more than a little surprised and a bit disgusted that the ride price for a Bike Town bike was EXACTLY the same as a PDX transit ride even with Nike support, city taxpayer support, is this considered the “charge the amount the market will bear” amount? For my money in a city that rains as much as PDX not to mention the other unsafe bike conditions like major potholes, etc. I think one would have to think twice about paying this amount for a one way ride. It kind of angered me that the city couldn’t have come up with a more affordable option perhaps more in the direction if not the amount of the famous “free white bike rides” of Amsterdam, Holland in the early 70’s there also sadly vandalism and theft ruined a good thing but it was an inexpensive good thing, and was more widely distributed around the city than only in the trendy inner city as in PDX.

I like how the pricing structure is setup: it is designed to have visitors subsidize local riders. Single use rides are are more expensive, but if you have a membership it is $12/month. Both me and my husband use it twice a day for commuting, with some errands run on it and some weekend rides too. 40 commute rides/month + maybe 20 other rides means we are paying about 20 cents/ride. That’s extremely affordable. And is possible because visitors are paying $2.50/ride.

The $12/month is cheaper than bike maintenance for me and much cheaper than my $100/month Trimet pass.